Sucking Noise You Hear: Fans Being Drawn in by Honesty
The backlash against the Web has finally arrived. Just ask John C. Dvorak, the popular computer columnist whose vitriolic diatribe titled “Web, Schmeb” appears in this month’s PC/Computing. “The World Wide Web is inefficient and overhyped,” he practically shouts. “Ninety-five percent of the pages served up on the Web are useless garbage.”
Unfortunately, he’s right. The Web is being smothered by corporate sites that consist solely of useless press releases and by online magazines that have nothing to say--but that take forever to say it, thanks to slow-to-download graphics.
But there are exceptions, and among the muck and mire one of the Web sites that shines brightest is Suck (https://www.suck.com), an electronic broad sheet that presents a new essay every weekday. Created just six months ago as an after-hours project by two junior HotWired employees, Suck has already elevated creators Joey Anuff and Carl Steadman into Newsweek’s list of the “50 People Who Matter Most on the Internet” and been heralded by the Wall Street Journal. Suck is now an independent subsidiary of HotWired (the electronic sibling of Wired magazine, where I work) and Joey, age 24, and Carl, 25, have quit their day jobs.
Unsurprisingly, Suck’s remarkable success has led to a rash of imitators, most notably Time Warner’s “The Netly News.” Yet despite Suck’s apparent simplicity--it’s just an essay a day, without any fancy interactive multimedia mumbo jumbo--none of its imitators are anywhere near as good. Which is why I went across the hall to talk to the people behind Suck. I wanted to figure out their trick.
My first theory was that Suck’s success has to do with its changing every day. Obvious, yes, but most sites don’t do it. They are either updated at infrequent, random intervals or--like Time Warner’s Pathfinder and HotWired itself--they mix week-old articles with brand-new ones so that it’s nearly impossible to skip right to the new stuff. By changing every day, Suck becomes addictive. I start feeling uneasy if I haven’t read it by noon.
Steadman, the more serious-seeming of the pair, agrees that this aspect is critical. “I come from a newspaper background, and one of the things you learn is that ‘news’ is really about having something to say. It’s something to talk about around the water cooler.” Indeed, “Have you seen today’s Suck?” has become a common refrain among the Web designers that congregate in San Francisco’s South Park area.
But there are plenty of Suck imitators that offer daily content that remains unread. My next theory was that Suck’s success also comes from its graphic design. Computer screens are a notoriously hostile environment for text--letters end up blurry and hard to read. Too often I end up printing a Web page so I can read it without getting a headache. Yet by using double spacing and short lines just a few words long, Suck makes a 1,000-word essay pleasurable to read.
“Leading is key,” agrees Anuff. “Reading text on a computer screen that isn’t double-spaced is just too hard.” Again, it’s an obvious idea. But it’s one that most Web sites don’t follow, for the simple reason that HTML--the page description language of the Web--doesn’t easily support it. Instead, tricks have to be used to force a space between each line.
Equally critical to Suck’s ease of reading is that it’s all on one page. That’s anathema to many Web designers, who seem to delight in forcing users to jump from page to page as if they are reading a preteen choose-your-adventure novel. But according to Anuff, “Hypertext is the worst thing about the Web.” By making the essay linear, he says, people know when they are done. “When people are asked if they read Suck, I want them to be able to say yes without wondering if they really saw all of it,” adds Steadman.
These tricks distinguish Suck from many of its imitators. Still, graphic design alone doesn’t seem reason enough for Suck’s phenomenal success. I had two additional theories. The first was that Suck’s success depends on the cynical and jaded tone it uses to devastating effect. After all, what Suck is best known for is picking some new Web site--Turner’s Spiv (https://www.spiv.com), say, as a recent and dramatic example--and really laying into it. It’s like a bullfight: People read Suck to see someone gored.
The Sucksters didn’t buy this for a second. “Let’s face it: Most stuff on the Web really does suck,” insists Anuff, sounding wounded by my assertion. “We’re not being cynical, we’re being honest.” Besides, Steadman continues, “it’s not as if we’re just criticizing for the sake of criticizing. Suck works because it is written in our real voices.”
Ah ha! I thought. That is precisely my final theory: Suck works because it is so imbued with the voice of Anuff and Steadman. It’s not like the big Web sites that appear to be impersonal, unassailable edifices of content. Instead, Suck is clearly the creation of a couple of guys who put it together after work.
“We’re not careerists, and it shows,” agrees Anuff. “We don’t pretend to be authorities. That’s why we write our articles under goofy pseudonyms like ‘Duke of URL.’ ” The result is that Suck provides something fans can circle around. And like any good band, it makes people think, “Hey, that’s not so hard. I could do that too.”
Hopefully, more people will start copying Suck’s honesty--along with its daily content and simple formatting--instead of just the surface cynicism. Maybe this way the 95% ratio of useless Web sites that Dvorak decries will finally drop a little.
